I noticed you took controlers into consideration and I also think its way easier to reorient yourslef with an joystick rather then with keys (joystick is esentially your brain giving one direction to move while with keys its essentially 8 different combinations of movement options that are hardwired to us. Also people work with inverted controls on controlers which means its not unnatural to have it swapped. WIth keyboards its way weirder that forward doesn't go forward.). So I get the point.
I know that there are frustrating games that are popular and I am not saying its explicitly bad to have difficult mechanics like these. Nevertheless I wanted to point it out to make an honest review.
Thanks for the reply, conversations about gamedesign is what the Jams are for afterall.